Thomas Francis
Mantell, Jr., was born in Simpson County, Kentucky, June 30, 1922. His
death occurred in Simpson County, January 7, 1948, while pursuing an
unidentified,
flying object. His birth and death are the only times that "Tommy" was
ever known to be in Simpson County.

Captain
Mantell's case became "Volume One of The Classics." The Classics were
three
UFO incidents in 1948 that (among other requirements) convinced Air
Technical
Intelligence Command's highest ranking officers and intelligence
specialists
that UFOs were real.

"Lieutenant"
Mantell was awarded the Distinguished flying Cross for his actions over
Holland on September 18, 1944. The Distinguished Flying Cross is
awarded
for "heroism or extraordinary achievement in aerial flight." His cargo
plane, with a glider in tow, came under heavy ground fire. All but one
of the rudder and elevator controls were shot out, and the tail section
was set on fire. "Vulture's Delight" had a courageous crew. The
crew
chief fought the fire with live ammunition going off. Rather than
release
the glider, Lt. Mantell continued towing. The glider was released at
its
intended location, and, judging from a picture of the cargo plane, Lt.
Mantell returned to base and landed an airplane that could not fly. He
was known as "Shiny" by his comrades. The moniker was bestowed because
of his "constant well -scrubbed look." "He was able to think fast and
act
quickly."

The Medal
of Honor is given to anyone in the armed services who "in action
involving
actual conflict with an enemy, distinguishes himself conspicuously by
gallantry
and intrepidity, at the risk of his life above, and beyond the call of
duty." That last phrase disqualifies all acts of courage performed in
the
course of carrying out orders or as a part of a man's service duties.
Though
the Medal of Honor will never be considered --and some so-called
investigators
want to remove Captain Mantell 's duty bound sacrifice from the annals
of ufology --the events associated with his crash and death deserve
close
scrutiny. He gave his life in an effort to intercept and identify an
unknown
object that was in the air space over the state and nation he had swore
to defend.

Captain
Mantell was on a "ferry mission." Four P-51Ds were being flown from
Georgia
to their station with the Air National Guard in Louisville, Kentucky.
Capt.
Mantell was the Flight Leader. One Mustang, piloted by Lt. Robert
Hendricks,
continued to Louisville. Two wingmen, Lt. A. W. Clements and Lt. B. A.
Hammond, followed their flight leader.According
to a Louisville newspaper, January 8, 1948:

Only Lt.
Clements had oxygen. [He had a bail-out bottle.] Oxygen had not been
issued
because they were training at comparatively low levels. Clements said
Mantell
apparently picked up the Godman Field (Fort Knox, KY) radio signal to
"look
for" an object, resembling a "flying saucer," that was reported
southwest
of Godman Field.

Clements
and Hammond followed. Mantell and Clements were linked by radio, but
Hammond's
communications set was tuned to a different frequency.

Clements
said Mantell informed him they were looking for something "but didn't
seem
to know exactly what it was." Soon Mantell related, "look, there it is
at 12 o'clock" (right over their nose). Clements saw a bright, shining
object that looked like a star. Mantell and Clements started for it.

Hammond,
who had received no word of the flying saucer, was bewildered. "At
first,
I thought we were lost. Then we started climbing, and I assumed we were
looking for Louisville." Hammond was depending on Mantell and Clements
for navigation and went up with them to avoid loosing his bearings. "I
felt a little shaky at 15,000 feet because I realized we were supposed
to take oxygen at 12,000.By the
time I hit 22,000, 1 was seeing double. I pulled alongside Clements and
indicated with gestures that I didn't have an oxygen mask. In fact, I
circled
my finger around my head to show him I was getting woozy. He understood
the situation, and we turned back."

Neither
Clements (25) nor Hammond (23) saw Mantell crash. Clements and Hammond
were both World War II veterans. Clements, who won the Distinguished
flying
Cross in North Africa and Italy, refueled [charged the aircraft oxygen]
and took off in search of the "disk" but failed to spot it. [It was
gone.
Synchronicity?]

Recalling
the appearance of the object, Clements remarked, "The more I think
about
it, the more I'm convinced it was a star or some other type of
celestial
body."

Some reports
indicate the object may have been a weather balloon. Two pilots at
Hopkinsville,
KY, said they followed a flying object and believed it was a balloon.
[NOTE:
These pilots probably followed Skyhook and identified the object as a
balloon.
Are we expected to believe that Captain Mantell, with 20/20 vision,
could
not make the same distinction?]

There is
no record of "hot guns" having been requested. There were none to be
had,
and only Clements returned to look for the boggy.

Mr. William
Hamilton was six and one-half years of age and living near Lucas, KY,
when
he witnessed a Mustang closing in on a bright object that was just east
of due south and at 45 degrees. Lucas is just east of due south from
Godman
Field. The object was "as bright as an arc welder seen in the
distance."
The plane went into a power ascent that seemed to take it all the way
to
the object. The plane leveled-off and headed in a westerly direction,
the
direction of Franklin. His mother, who was with him at the time, heard
a noise that she assumed was the airplane crashing. The plane probably
broke the sound barrier. Lucas is about 35 miles from Franklin. A loud
sound was heard over a large area.

School's
out on a clear, crisp, January afternoon in Franklin, Kentucky. In the
center of town with a kind and trusted, mature relative is a secure
place
for a ten year old. A glimpse! One's perspective changes forever. The
relative
pointed to an orange object, about the size of the full moon, traveling
in the direction of the crash site. The object had the appearance of
sunlight
reflected from polished metal. It was viewed for only a few seconds. A
Skyhook balloon, if it could have been seen, would not have appeared to
be the size of the "full moon." The siren sounded announcing the fire
department
was being dispatched (because of the crash) within minutes of the
sighting.
The witness did not see nor hear the airplane and does not recall
hearing
a loud, explosive sound.

Mrs. Anna
Margaret Mayes saw the airplane in its dive. She was at Cool Springs
School.
She knows the time based on her location: It was no earlier than 3:30
P.M.

Mr. Glenn
Mayes heard the plane before seeing it. He first saw the plane in a
tight
spiraling dive. It was at about 6,000 feet. Mr. Mayes was approximately
400 yards from the crash site, and, because of associated events, he
knows
the time was no earlier than 3:30 P.M.

The plane
came apart fairly close to the ground (about 2,000 feet). There was the
sound of metal being ripped apart and the roar of the engine. Though a
loud explosion was reportedly heard in Franklin (about four miles) and
elsewhere, neither Mrs. Mayes nor Mr. Mayes remember an especially loud
sound.

Mr. Mayes
discovered the fuselage fuel tank while hunting. It was about one-half
mile from the crash, near Cool Springs Church. The tank was destroyed
years
ago by the property owner.

[NOTE: I
chose not to address the tale, attributed to Glenn and/or his cousin
William,
that the plane was seen circling (three times) before starting its
spiral.
Both men were together.]

A six year
old witness, hearing the noise, rushed to the window and saw the
impact.
Captain Mantell crashed about 150 yards from his home. His mother, Mrs.
Joe Phillips, reported the crash at 3:30 P.M., the time given for the
crash
in the FRANKLIN FAVORITE, January 8, 1948. This witness remembers the
separated
tail section being found, about one-quarter mile away, after the
military
departed. Sudan's from a local university removed it years later.
Though
extensive efforts were made by historians to locate the tail section,
its
current location and condition are unknown.

Local gentry
in the Volunteer Fire Department removed Captain Mantell's
pulverized-body
from the smoking wreck. Oil was spilling onto a hot engine. The plane
never
burned.

The condition
of the Mustang, and of Captain Mantell 's body, seems to have posed a
quandary
for crash investigators.

The P-51D
was not designed for speeds exceeding the speed of sound. Upon
approaching
the "barrier," the tail would thrash wildly, and the plane would become
totally uncontrollable.

It was standard
procedure to use all but 25 gallons of fuel from the fuselage tank
first
because it made landing easier due to helping establish center of
balance.

Though not
a crash investigator, the following hypothesis is (in my opinion) the
most
likely scenario.

The airplane
was in a tight spiral dive with fuel thrashing within the partially
full
tank. When the tail section broke away, the P-51D became an
aerodynamic-wreck
with one of the most powerful engines of its day running wide-open
(while
the fuel lasted). The tail section ripped off and wound up a
quarter-mile
away. The fuselage fuel-tank was twice that distance. Fuel tank and
tail
section were never found by the military. One wing broke loose upon (or
close to) impact and landed a few feet away. Just prior to impact, with
no fuel being supplied, the engine stalled, and the Mustang pancaked
into
the soft earth during a January thaw. One prop pierced the ground, two
lay flat upon the surface, and one stood attention at the scene.

Captain
Mantell 's skull was decapitated when the canopy went, and his uniform
was all that kept his body intact when it was removed from the plane.
He
was pulverized from the thrashing descent and impact.

Captain
Thomas F. Mantell, Jr., a dedicated soldier, forfeited his life
attempting
to intercept and identify an object that he (and apparently Godman
Field's
tower personnel) believed to be a potential threat to the security of
the
United States. An unidentified object in the sky "was not a good thing"
where the Air Force "was" concerned.

The Twing
letter exemplifies the military attitude towards UFOs at the time
Captain
Mantell pursued an unidentified object to his death: "fling Disks" were
"real (Note: 2/a)." The Twing letter was extracted from the SCIENTIFIC
STUDY of UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS.".

The big-guns
of science had never been brought to bear on the problem. Rumblings of
discontent (both on Capitol Hill and among the public at large) led the
Air Force to seek an independent assessment of the UFO situation. The
study,
at the cost of about half a million dollars, was carried out by the
University
of Colorado under the direction of Dr. Edward U. Condon because of his
scientific eminence and independence. This study is chronicled in the
"SCIENTIFIC
STUDY of UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS," copyright 1968 by the Board of
Regents
of the University of Colorado.

Condon
validates
Captain Edward J. Ruppelt by using his material.

Captain
Ruppelt, the first head of Project Blue Book, used the pseudonym
"Project
Bear"(project
name for an Air Force contract) for Battelle Memorial Institute in his
book, THEREPORT
ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS. Battelle was just down the road from
Dayton,
Ohio, where Project Blue Book, being part of Air Technical Intelligence
Command was located.Battelle
Memorial Institute is in Columbus, 505 King Avenue.

In early
1952, shortly after his first visit to Battelle, Captain Ruppelt was
called
upon by the office of the Air Force's Director of Intelligence to
investigate
the events associated with the crash and death of Captain Thomas
Mantell.
Records had been transferred to microfilm, and something had been
spilled
on the microfilm. Very little could be read. Captain Ruppelt
practically
reconstructed the case. After completing the investigation, Ruppelt
phoned
back his answer: "It could have been a balloon." Could"
is
italicized, indicating (to me) "something is amiss."

If that
was an entrance examination, Captain Edward J. Ruppelt passed with
flying
colors. He retained his position to glean information so that he could
pass UFO intelligence to those interested. His is, by far, the
best
UFO expose ever written.

One
must read between the lines to grasp the implications and probabilities
of Captain Ruppelt 's book, THE REPORT ON UNIDENTIFIED FLYING OBJECTS.
For example, when summarizing the Florida scoutmaster's hoax, Captain
Ruppelt
didn't say he suspected the ground was heated, and the burns were
implemented,
by an arc welder -- but he let us know there was one in the
neighborhood.

A balloon
being the object Captain Mantell was chasing is out of the question
though
there was a balloon in the general area. A balloon was reported having
been viewed through a telescope by a man from Madisonville, Kentucky,
after
Captain Mantell crashed. Madisonville is northwest of Franklin,
Kentucky.
The object was traveling southeast. An astronomer living north of
Nashville,
Tennessee, reported seeing a balloon through a telescope at 4:45.
Nashville
is south of Franklin. These are the balloon reports that some
researchers
espouse being the object Captain Mantell pursued.

A "Skyhook"
has recently been reported by retired balloon scientist Charles Moore
as
having been launched from Camp Ripley, Minnesota, the day before.
Skyhook
looked like a balloon: The former engineer in charge of the Navy's
Project
Skyhook said the fully inflated balloon was "105 feet tall and 73 feet
in diameter." The balloon lifted to 90,000 feet. If over Franklin at
90,000
feet (If Skyhook could have been seen 85-miles away on a clear, hazy
day)
it SHOULD have been seen at nine degrees above the horizon from Ft.
Knox,
KY. At nine degrees above the horizon (if over Franklin at 90,000
feet) as viewed from Godman Field, the reported 45 degrees makes no
sense.
Also, reports of movement of the object seen at Godman were toward the
west. The 85 miles high balloon [at 45 degrees from Ft. Knox] should
have
been perceived as moving from right to left, getting lower and smaller
as it moved away. These glaring inconsistencies are not reconciled by
balloon-proponents
who are willing to dismiss everything except that a balloon was
somewhere
in the general area, sometime during the day.

Captain
Ruppelt know better, and so did the intelligence analysts at Air
Technical
Intelligence Command who were convinced that Captain Mantell was
pursuing
an object that was not from this world.

The "new''
Skyhook, allegedly launched from Camp Ripley, on January 6, 1948,
notwithstanding!
According to wind records supplied by the group that supervised the
contracts
for all Skyhook research flights for the Air Force, a Skyhook launched
from Clinton County Air Force Base in Ohio could have been seen in
Maysville,
Kentucky, and then from Irvington and Owensboro twenty minutes later.

Ruppelt
states, "It is not unusual to be able to see a large balloon for 50 to
60 miles. The balloon could have traveled west for a while, climbing as
it moved with strong east winds that were blowing that day and picking
up speed as the winds got stronger at altitude. Still climbing, the
balloon
would have reached a level where a strong wind was blowing in a
southerly
direction," etc.

Several
people from Maysville, Kentucky, reported seeing a "strange craft."
Twenty
minutes later, people from Irvington and Owensboro reported a "circular
craft about 250 to 300 feet in diameter" and "moving westward at a
pretty
good clip." It's about 190 miles from Maysville to Owensboro: 190 miles
in twenty minutes is 570 miles per hour. The first report was probably
delayed which would reduce the indicated speed accordingly.

A balloon
"moving westward at a pretty good clip" on a clear, hazy day in January
with cirrus clouds and winds gently from the south seems a very
unlikely
scenario.

*
* *

The
information,
in the next five paragraphs, is supplied by Captain Arthur T. Jehli,
Supervisor
of the 1600E-2400E shift on January 7, 1948, at Flight Test Operations
at Wright Field. (Source: PROJECT BLUE BOOK, edited by Brad Steiger)

An object
was seen south-southwest of Godman Field by tower personnel, and
Captain
Mantell was vectored in that direction. Captain Gary W. Carter, Godman
Field, Fort Knox, Kentucky, stated the object could be seen with the
naked
eye; it was round and white and could be seen through cirrus clouds.

After Captain
Mantell crashed, a large light was seen by Godman personnel in the same
approximate position of the object seen earlier.

Later, a
"great hall of light" was spotted at Lockbourne Tower (central Ohio)
and
Clinton County, Ohio (kinda southwest Ohio), traveling southwest across
the sky.

Later that
same day, St. Louis Tower called Flight Test Operations at Wright Field
advising a "great ball of light was passing directly over the field."
Scott
Tower also verified this.

Air Defense
Command plotted the object as moving west-southwest at 250 miles per
hour.

*
* *

The time
of the crash was officially established to be 3:18 because that was
when
Captain Mantell's watch stopped. He crashed about 3:30. It's not
unthinkable
that Captain Mantell stopped his watch. It was approximately 3:18 when
Mr. Hamilton witnessed the rapid ascent of the Mustang toward the
object.
The watch may also have stopped due to close proximity to the object.
The
Hill's watches stopped when they had their encounter, and Betty recalls
a whirling, fiery mass with the craft visible inside as it departed.

A whirling,
fiery mass could appear as "sun reflected from polished metal" if it
was
85-miles up in a clear, January Kentucky-sky.

The
synchronistic
birth and death of Captain Mantell seems preordained - akin to the boy
of "John 9" who was born blind "that the works of God should be made
manifest
in him."

"Synchronicity,"
a term that seems to have been coined by Dr. Carl C. Jung, implies
"worlds
beyond cause." Synchronicity manifest in Godman Field's control
tower.
Captain Ruppelt writes, without comment, "They [tower personnel]
theorized
that since the UK) had had to pass north of Godman to get from
Maysville
to Owensboro it might come back." At one forty-five they saw it, or
something
like it. Later, in his official report, the assistant tower operator
said
that he had seen the object for several minutes before he called his
chief's
attention to it. He said that he had been reluctant to make a flying
saucer
report.

Synchronicity
appears in a great many of the sighting reports associated with the
object,
or objects(?), that Captain Mantell "could" have been pursuing that
tragic
day. Virtually every sighting of a bright object was viewed at 45
degrees,
regardless of the person's geographic location.

Colonel
Guy Hix was Base Commander of Godman Field at the time Captain Mantell
crashed.His next
assignment was in Texas where his children were romping companions with
Whitley Strieber.

ClickMantell
marker dedication to see
pictures
of the dedication of the historical marker for Captain Mantell by the
Simpson
County Historical Society, 206 N. College St., Franklin, Ky 42134